


A Quiet Storm, Big Enough for Two

by HerWingsofGlass



Category: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
Genre: Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F, Lesbian Character, POV First Person, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 12:04:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19334173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerWingsofGlass/pseuds/HerWingsofGlass
Summary: Therese reflects on her relationship with Carol...A short Therese POV one-shot.





	A Quiet Storm, Big Enough for Two

I hadn’t planned on loving her. That’s the salt of it all—I hadn’t planned any of it. Though, I suppose when it all comes to play, I hadn’t _planned_ any of the parts of my life, really. 

There was Richard, of course. He was a force of his own—sweeping in, strutting around. He would enter a room, scoop me into his massive arms like I was a kitten. A sack of flour. A jacket sloped along the armrest of a couch—and carry me off. I spent most of my time with him silent. Silent and holding his attention at bay so that I would not be swallowed whole. It wasn’t that I hated him or felt any sort of enmity. It was that the paleness of our bond was insignificant. It was my normal, that life of pastels and washed-out tones. A thin, off-white world in which I did not yet know that cream could be a vibrant color. I liked him fine, I suppose. I never knew what to say to him or how really to act around him, but I believe we were well enough. Anyway, he never seemed to notice that I did not speak. He thought I was strange, surely, but he was happy to fill the empty air with his voice, his thoughts and observations and ideas. I would nod, mutter a short response, make a banal comment. What else was there to do? And so, I would follow him with a stretch of silence, trudging along like everything was fine. Because I thought things were supposed to be fine. It’s a laugh, looking back on it all now. I think some part of me knew even then that whatever was between us was empty and incomplete. But how can you know what you don’t know? I thought it was me… or maybe that love wasn’t really what the stories said. That there was nothing special about it after all. Just stories thrown together to make us feel better about the patterns we adopt to keep us comfortable.

But that all rushed out of my mind when I saw her. God, when I saw her. There was something different about her. Just seeing her off behind the train sets… it was like my entire body was pulled along to look at her. When she walked up to my counter, I knew immediately. I saw there and then the stories. No, something greater, more fearsome than any story. I could have drowned in her. Had she reached across the long, stretching panes of glass between us, swept me up with those red nails, those long fingers… I would have gladly been swept. I would not have clung madly to the countertop, resisting the force and pull of Carol Aird. I would have went, sped to, willingly and happily.

It was a terrifying thing to recognize. A dizzying thing to feel.

And then, of course, there were the gloves. The breadcrumbs sprinkled in her wake. It hadn’t occurred to me at the time that perhaps Carol had left them on purpose. Perhaps it was a test. A woman of her stature could afford to lose a pair of gloves, surely. But perhaps that is unfair. Perhaps Carol was no more in control than I. _Perhaps_ the force that threw us together, that hurricane-whirled us around each other was something else, something bigger than either of us. But could any force, _anything_ fit in this world outside of us? Surely we filled the air, electrified everything else. Burned down cities in our wake. Between us we made a black hole of time and society. It all slipped away, yet came crashing toward, loosened and mad and chaotic. As we swirled around, the world would drain away, disappear into the ether.

Because, often, Carol feels like a god. Especially in those early days, I would not have been the least surprised had she turned to me one night, voice low and full of thunder—had she murmured a truth: a secret revelation. Whispering some magic words to reveal Athena, Artemis, Aphrodite. Ancient and artful and incredible. I would have believed it in an instance. Because when Carol sees you, your entire body is lit on fire. And when she looks away, the world is made of ice and shadows. Dramatic irony or divine consequence? I’ve never solved the riddle.

Even now, some days I glimpse that same godly light. Out of the corner of my eyes or through the miniature window of the camera viewer, Carol seems to be sculpted sunlight. She reaches into my body, beneath my skin, between my bones, and rustles therein, alighting my soul. Or maybe: Is she a ghost? Am I haunted? I ask because no human could possibly have such an effect on me. A pied piper to my heart from the very first moment we met, she played, she beckoned and after her, I danced.

Things grew different, of course. They always do. We deepened. Developed. I am less afraid of Carol now and less afraid of myself when I am around her. The electricity is familiar and warm. I’m not as surprised when it runs through me as she rounds the corner or enters a room. A kindly radar.

One time, long before everything had fallen apart between us, I’d asked my mother about love. It had seemed a little like a curse in her eyes. My father gone, my mother seemed like a shell. When she laughed in response, the laugh was bitter and echoed inside of her from emptiness. ‘Love will eat you alive,’ she said. ‘People will eat you up. They dig up under your walls, make you warm, and strip you bare until you’re nothing left.’ Every hair on my neck had raised. I was young enough to believe her, old enough to know that not everything true has to be literal. Still, to be safe, I’d sworn off the whole of it. Whether she was right or not, love was what made her. I wanted none of it. 

Wanting hardly seems to matter in the hurricane, however. 

Then again, had I wanted Carol? Where had desire entered into the equation? What role did intent play in it all? I suppose I had wanted her. But that wanting… it was different. It was a primal want. Something risen up from within, from beneath me. I wasn’t in control of it. It had blinded me, thrown me, moved my hands about like puppets on strings. 

…

 

It’s been a few years now. I’ve changed. So has she. Our bodies, our lives, slowly winnowed down like stone under constant water. Watery time sluiced over us, softening our angled shapes, thumbing down our deep embittered crevices. We made better to fit each other. And now: Everything is a scattered set of rituals and patterns. I know her paths through our apartment and our city as she knows mine. I fancy some days an ant’s sense: to see, dimly lit, a glowing track of the woman who holds my heart as she navigates the bulk of her day. Away from me but within a breath’s reach. I could tilt my head toward the ground and see the ways she went, know the possibility of following her through streets and corners and building and avenues. 

Each day, we gather into our hands short delightful moments—a lunch between meetings, a dinner out with friends, a movie, perhaps. Purposeful interruptions to the patterns. We plan them and still they startle us. Delight us. The anticipation of seeing her face earlier than normal buzzes through me, making every hour crawl by, coaxing soft smiles to my lips without reason. 

Maybe we had needed the break. Things had shifted, imperceptibly at first, then obviously, during the months we’d been apart. We had grown scar tissue. We had extended ourselves into the world alone. Well, not alone. We had friends. I had Dannie and Phil and all the others. Nestled into them was always a Carol-shaped hole. The only time I expected to see her amongst their ranks was when I would see her so prominently not-there. And then the work… That had been good. 

They say that Prometheus made humans with two bodies in one—four hands, four legs, two heads, two sets of inner workings, but only one soul. When we were knocked apart, each half would go off in search of the other half of their soul—buried safe and waiting in the body of another. It never says anything about easy. One might imagine it couldn’t be easy—to find them, to keep them. We never hear the sequel, though. The story following the finding. The story of two people learning how it works to share a soul. Still, I think maybe the rift wasn’t an accident. Maybe Prometheus knew they needed a break. Needed to come apart so that they could be together. Maybe we, too, needed time and space to build up ourselves, our walls, so that, in all that wind and rain and gale, we could still stand. 

These days we live in the hurricane. It is our shelter. A quiet storm, big enough for two. Only a handful could see the clouds on the outside, but we like it that way. It is electric to walk the city streets beside one another, maybe to risk walking arm in arm like two very good friends might, and to know what we are to one another. 

And I love her still. And I know that she loves me. Within the wind, our lives intertwined and reformed in a life—something simple and sweet. Discreet but warm. Things are not easy. A hurricane is not an easy place. We hear the wind rattle hard against the windows, feel it press urgently against the door. The world is out there waiting for us, but we have a space that is warm, is safe. A stronghold within a storm. 

And that, for now, is more than enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all. The summer is out and the sun is bright. I hope you enjoyed this little thing I drew up for you. 
> 
> I've wanted to play with first person for a while now. 3rd person feels more natural to me. There is something about embodying the "I" of a character that feels daunting. Everything depends upon getting their voice right. Perhaps I'll do one for Carol. Who is to say. 
> 
> A question for readers: If I were to write some stories for/on/through a different fandom, which would you suggest that I pick? I like writing Carol stories, but I also want to play with other characters and other worlds. Do you have any other favorite works?


End file.
